This 5-year-old maker of enterprise data-storage equipment is taking on the industry's market-share leader—EMC—in the $24 billion corporate data-storage industry. Pure Storage uses flash technology rather than traditional hard drives, like EMC, to allow companies to store vast databases and business records.

Pure Storage's CEO, Scott Dietzen, says flash memory is faster and uses less power. And although typically more expensive than disks, he reports that Pure Storage has found a way to bring costs down so that the company's flash technology is on par with what corporations are now paying for disk storage.

The Mountain View, California-based company is attracting an increasing number of customers with this formula. LinkedIn and Workday, the cloud-based human resources company, are among a growing roster of companies using Pure's flash storage. Revenues grew 700 percent in 2013 and are increasing at least 50 percent every quarter, the company reports. Well-known venture capital firms, including Greylock Partners, Tiger Global Management and Samsung Investors, are also attracted to Pure Storage's technology. So far, they've contributed nearly $475 million in financing. Analysts report that the company is now valued at $3 billion.

On the company's disruptive impact:

"We are disrupting the legacy storage industry as a whole, challenging incumbent mechanical disk technology vendors and the outdated business model that has dominated the enterprise storage market for decades."-Scott Dietzen, CEO